


Molting Season

by sparkleeye



Series: Multifandom Kink Bingo [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Time, Gender Dysphoria, Getting Together, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Misunderstandings, Neil Hargrove's A+ Parenting, Other: See Story Notes, POV Billy Hargrove, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Switching, Trans Billy Hargrove, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2020-10-17 15:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20623154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkleeye/pseuds/sparkleeye
Summary: Billy Hargrove wasn't bornBillyand that's no one's fucking business but his, especially in the ninth circle of hell that is Bumfuck, Indiana.





	1. Prologue + I.

**Author's Note:**

> (just a quick FYI that this is not entirely 100% medically or historically accurate by way of how far hormone therapy and medical procedures had come by this point, how trans rights and lgbtq acceptance were in the eighties, and procedural costs. certain aspects have been adjusted in terms of acceptance and time/process for the sake of pacing.)
> 
> so uhhh i've had this in my drafts for ages but i finally got the insp to work on it again because trashcangimmick is putting out the trans content that i Need so i'm thanking him for that.
> 
> this knocks out five of my kink bingo squares as well -- condoms, edgeplay, make-up sex, aftercare, PIV sex. this is really just a sloppy, angsty fuckfest with a heavy helping of billy's unresolved issues. idk where i'm going otherwise though.
> 
> **and a warning**:
> 
> for the love of god please read/check the tags. each chapter will warn for _specific_ content but i tried to be safe and cover my bases in the fic tags as well. scenes involving neil don't need their own warning as neil is one himself but due to lack of knowledge and initial misunderstandings, steve also unintentionally says some things he shouldn't because he doesn't know better. be wary of anatomical phrasing as well as there is a strong overtone of billy's internalized issues that run rampant throughout this fic and that affects some of the language choices.
> 
> extra prologue/chapter one warning(s):  
\- mentions of PMS  
\- mentions of underage sex

✩ PROLOGUE  ✩

Billy has always _known_. 

Years later he finds out that he’s a perfect fit to the mold - trading his mother’s picks of collared dresses for ratty jeans and t-shirts early on, begging for a haircut at age eight after a tear filled confession of _something’s wrong with me_, leaving the girls and their Barbies in the sandbox behind for the boys with GI Joes and baseball mitts - while in therapy, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Born one, meant to be another.

Initially the only one person that knew _Billy Hargrove_ was born _Katherine Marie _was his mom. She was the only one safest to tell. They ran away so he could be _Billy _and she didn’t have to go into work with a thick layer of concealer under her eye or bandaids littering her arms. 

But Neil ended the first happy period of Billy’s life right quick. He spent the next four years of his life with his guard up, on the defense. Lying through his teeth. Free cracked ribs and jeering accusations of _faggot!_ to keep cautious miles between him and everyone else. Locked up and shut down, stewing in anger and pain.

Billy stayed with Mom as long as he could, though. 

He was in third grade when she came out to breakfast with another black eye and fresh split to her lip, and he knew what was coming next. Could feel it fluttering in his gut, the anticipation of it. The next morning she apologized to Neil for the previous night, kissed him goodbye on his way out the door to work, and packed up the Camaro with all the necessities they could fit in it, and they were gone.

_We’ll get a fresh start, baby_, she’d told him, grinning from the driver’s side despite the tears running hot down her face. She looked like sunshine, gleaming bright and gold, triumphant. A warrior returning from glorious battle all bloodied and scarred but still standing. Finally she could be happy, _they _could be happy. 

There was something about the way his mom smiled that day that made him feel the safest he had in years. And would for many to come.

Finally they were away from Neil, away from the neighbors that turned their heads and watered their front lawns instead of calling the cops when the screaming continued past eleven p.m.; when Hannah Hargrove came out to have her post-dinner smoke with a new bruise staining her cheek. 

They stayed on 5-North for five and a half hours until they pulled up the safety of his aunt’s driveway, stayed in the extra bedroom until the two jobs Mom worked got them a little coral colored condo on the water. At his new school, he was William — _Billy_, from The Left Handed Gun. 

Their neighbor, Mrs. Oleson, a woman with freckled, dark skin and smoke colored curly hair and a fat old Calico, would watch Billy while Mom worked nights at the laundromat. Played Scrabble with him and made him help with dinner every night. She never asked questions. He was just _Sugar _to her.

When Billy was nine, he begged to be rid of pink polka dot sheets and the Easy Bake Oven that hadn’t been touched since age five and all the _girls’ clothes_ \- every part of _Katie Hargrove _that had come with them in the move - Mom asked him, for the first time in months, how sure he was about being a boy. 

_I just want to know, baby_, she’d said, smiling despite her eyes crinkled with worry, _I just wanna know how sure you are that you wanna be ‘Billy’ for the rest of your life._

The tears that came immediately flooding answered her question better than any verbal affirmation ever would have. They sold as much of _Katie _they could a week later and that seemed to solve some of the problems Billy was having because he invited a friend over for the first time once he’d exchanged all the pink for blue. 

_I’m just like every other boy now, _he’d said, beaming at the new sheets and black high tops and hand-me-down striped wallpaper Ms. Diaz from downstairs had given them.

He climbed trees and the wave-beaten rock faces with scabbed knees and dove into the high tide - _it was seven feet! _\- without his shirt on, pitched in baseball without the fear of Neil grabbing his arm and nearly popping his shoulder out of socket when _only dykes play softball, Katherine_.

A year and a half of bliss passed and he was eleven, waking up in a sweaty panic to find a mess of blood staining his thighs and the sheets underneath. 

The cruel irony of it was that a lady wearing an orange turtleneck had come to class the week before and had pinned anatomical charts to the chalkboard and talked about _nocturnal emissions _and _menstruation_ while handing out little illustrated booklets welcoming them into adulthood.

Billy knew then that there were some things chopped hair and a new name and baseball practice couldn’t compensate for. 

Because every other boy Billy knew didn’t _bleed _there.

Mom decided then that it was time for a real change. She started to pack on extra hours at the salon and opened the dry cleaners early on the weekends and few months later, the appointments started.

For a few remaining blissful years, it was just Billy and Mom and that little coral apartment just up the street from the beach.

That apartment was his first pierced ear, the first binder and biweekly injections that had his voice cracking like all the other eighth grade boys. Was his first reciprocated crush on a boy and his first experiences with mutual intimacy. It was Chris Saunders’ shy hand on his thigh while they thumbed through stolen dirty magazines and watched Scooby Doo after homework on the nights Mom had to stay late at the salon. 

They scrimped and saved and sometimes the food stamps didn’t cover enough but it was the best time Billy had, for a very long time. 

Because right before Billy turned fourteen, Mom was served court summons. 

Neil had a new all American family in SoCal picked out but he couldn’t _exactly_ wed his new bride despite being separated. He also wanted partial or full custody of Billy, which made _no _sense to _Billy_, seeing as he’d always been sure that his dad didn’t actually want him _or _his mom around when they were still living in the old house on Limewood. 

He’d been fully aware of the way his dad used to mutter about the _queers_ at the beach when they spent a weekend in San Fran for his mom’s birthday. Didn’t miss the dirty looks he shot two older women holding hands at the grocery store, at a boy _much_ like Billy at the library. 

How that little _dyke _just needed a good straightening out.

And now Neil wanted him back home? Fuck that. He hadn’t seen his dad in person since they _moved_. During their brief, occasional phone calls, everything that left Neil’s mouth was laced with sugared promises of how he’d be_ better off with_ _your old man, Katie, instead of that filthy whore you call a mother_ that would quickly morph into threats about how Billy was going to end up just as cheap as her, selling himself on his back, the transition as rapid and sudden as a backhanded slap.

Plus — Neil didn’t know about _Billy_, either. Pitching his voice on the phone used to be easier but the shots just made him sound squeaky and pubescent when he would try to feminize his voice. The excuses of colds and asthma weren’t going to work in a courtroom, either.

And they didn’t. 

Because Neil _lost it_ when he saw Billy. 

He eyed the golden hair that curled just under his ears, the ironed button-down and biker boots and straight-cut Levis, the slightest, blondest tuft of peach fuzz - _what has she done to my little girl?_ \- all hurt and confused like he hadn’t yelled at or hit Billy growing up. Hadn’t bruised his wrists and put a gash in the back of his head from a shove into the china cabinet when he was trying to save his mom from a slap.

And the more Billy tried to calmly explain - _Dad, I’m different; I’m not a girl_ \- the more Neil grew belligerent, hostile, spouting off about how Billy was so _disrespectful_ and called him a _slut _and a _dyke_, _fucking carpet muncher_, screamed at how Mom had made him _insane _with all that hippie horseshit. 

It got so bad the bailiff had to come out and pull a belligerent Neil away from him. 

There were two other court dates after that and Neil was on his best behavior both times, trying to compensate and apologize for his _uncharacteristic outburst_. Said it was the shock that turned him so suddenly sour. Bull-fucking-shit. 

But the judge bought it.

Billy wanted to go home with Mom so badly it ached, especially when Neil started ripping into her from the stand. Wanted to pull him out of his seat and _hit _until he had a fist full of broken teeth. Bit his lip and sniffled in anger, stomach sour as he clutched his mom’s hand under the table. 

Neil just spewed off about how batshit fucking insane his soon-to-be ex-wife was, running off without a warning, kidnapping and turning their sweet baby girl into some masculine, hardened dyke. 

The look on the judge’s face made it obvious who was going to win this and it wasn’t fucking _fair_. Billy was sick in the bathroom after they reached the final verdict of custody.

Because Neil got primary custody. 

The judge sided with him because he had a house and a stable job, a new wife and a new _daughter_ just waiting to start a new life with him. The judge believed his little charade of just wanting his _kid_ to be part of his little nuclear family. Play the pre-written role in some Stepford bullshit. 

“He’s got more to offer you,” the judge told him from three feet up, “a real house, a real _family_, the kind of normalcy a kid needs growing up.”

The only win Billy got that day was that the family court recognized his dysphoria, despite the fact Mom’s public defender had to win them over by calling it a _mental disorder_, that the shots were his medication. Meant to fix him. Made him more ‘normal’.

The taste of that victory was beyond bittersweet. Having to listen to them talk about him like he wasn’t there, that he was _sick_, made him feel worse than knowing he’d have to spend nine months out of the year with Neil, but he knew that lowballing it was going to convince the judge not to take him off the hormone replacement, even if Neil had his obvious qualms about the ‘transgendereds’.

It was up to Neil to pay for his shots now, for the sake of Billy’s _mental well being_ — a sacrifice he was going to have to make in order to keep primary custody. He’d already won, taken everything away from Billy; he could take this one loss.

As they left, Mom silenced her cries with an unfair and uncomfortable amount of ease and ran her fingers through Billy’s hair for a majority of the ride back home. Billy shared the full size with Mom in the master bedroom that night. It brought a sliver of peace. She rubbed his back until he fell asleep, a little dehydrated and all cried out.

He wouldn’t be able to see her until summer. 

The judge must’ve thought it was slightly more feasible, with split custody, for the labeled _discombobulated _parent to take over his primary care outside of the schooling season. There’d be the occasional long weekend, Christmas, maybe Thanksgiving, but otherwise — he was trapped in Neil’s grasp.

And he was stuck there.

✩ CHAPTER ONE  ✩

Billy didn’t think he’d be spending his senior year in the middle of cow shit and corn fields, but here he was. Buttfuck nowhere Hawkins, Indi-fucking-ana. 

He knows it’s primarily his fault that they’re out here. Really, it’s both his fault and step sister’s - _Max’s _\- at the same time. His move was justifiable, a kill strike, both something for himself and to serve Neil fucking _right_. The reaction he got made the win even _sweeter_. 

He hopes Mom thinks so, too. It’ll be worth it for a little while; he doesn’t know the next time he’ll see her again. When he’ll actually be able to _do it_. Soon it’s just going to hurt that they didn’t get to follow through with their plan and it’s not going to feel like it was enough to justify the two thousand miles now between them.

Neil will probably hide her letters and hang up the phone if she tries to call. Will salt the wound for all its worth. 

Because _she tried to fucking mutilate my daughter!_

Being out in Hawkins makes him feel a little special though, because he’s a rare find. _California Boy. _And Neil can’t take that away from him.

The girls in Hawkins hang off Billy like he’s been plucked off the front cover of some dime romance novel they finger themselves to every night. None of them are his type, sure; girls haven’t really _ever_ been his type though, but he’s fine with settling. He’s able to have a sense of _appreciation._

Can luxuriate in the curve of long shaven legs and the soft press of cleavage against his arm, the glossy shine of strawberry Lip Smacker, but not in the same way the other guys do. There’s no _hunger _in him for it other than the desire to stroke his ego — put him at the top of their ‘best lay’ lists in the backs of their diaries. Having the same parts is good practice.

He’ll gladly tuck his hands under lace bras, roll pink nipples between his fingers, rub some cheap junior through her panties until the cotton bleeds with slick, for the sake of appearances. Their shudders and moans and praise gets him off more than his face in their pussies does.

The ironic part is Neil always calls him a dyke, but Billy really only _craves _guys. He’s pretty fucking _gay _despite the fact that he hasn’t fucked around with them. _Much_. 

Chris Saunders in the beachside apartment has been the only _real _exception. No other guy has been uttered the truth to or seen him naked besides what he can pass showing off.

Well, minus that last one. But he can hardly consider him seeing as nothing really happened so — _Chris_.

Chris didn’t ask questions when he’d seen the noticeable swell of Billy’s chest under his t-shirt or the lack of weight hanging in his yellow dolphin shorts after school one day. Didn’t press him after that either. Billy was a _boy_ to him and that's what mattered. They were in eighth grade.

Chris had whispered that he’d liked him while they did their homework together one afternoon and kissed him softly while leaning over their algebra textbooks, tasting like powdered sugar doughnuts and orange juice.

It was the most normal Billy had felt. They shared mere weeks of shy, secret kisses in grimy bathroom stalls and in the privacy of his bedroom, throwing each other knowing smiles across the room during shared classes. All he wanted to do every second of the day was have Chris pin him down and kiss him breathless. 

It made him burn with a newfound lust. He hadn’t been getting off by himself for _that _long when they started fooling around.

They’d never gone all the way, too young and scared to actually try, but they screwed around as often as they could. He’d given Chris a lot of handjobs under his briefs while they kissed, his palm slick with Mom’s rose scented hand cream. Had learned that trick from Suzie Elliot during PE. And Billy only sucked him off twice; Chris had come salty and bright in Billy’s mouth a minute in both times, petting his hair and breathing heavy.

It was always about _Chris_ despite how often Billy had been assured that this was mutual. That if he wanted, Chris would gladly touch him back. _Wanted _to, even. He still just thought that Chris only liked him because he had a perky pair of little tits and a pussy.

Had believed so until one particular frenching lesson got too heated and Billy temporarily threw his insecurities out. Chris was grunting out how hot Billy was as he pinned him to the side of the sofa and Billy was a fucking goner.

He’d unabashedly tugged everything off and laid out on the sofa, both their clothes piled on the floor and let Chris, with his big blue eyes and lightly pimpled forehead and dreamy beach hair, nip at his chest as he slip his spit-wet fingers inside. Pushed his head down while _Young Frankenstein_ played on the TV and gushed around his knuckles with a ragged gasp while violin music wept in the background.

It had only happened a few more times. Chris moved to Colorado three months after that first kiss. 

That’s really the furthest he’s actually gotten with a guy, the most he’s ever _liked _a guy, although Billy’s sucked plenty of cock since, has fingered some green eyed twink to a quivering orgasm under the bleachers his sophomore year. 

But he’s never let any other boys return the favor; ‘straight’ guys usually won’t anyway.

At least the clueless straight girls he’s eaten out have been kindhearted and breathless enough to offer to suck his cock, let him fuck them for a bit. He denies them every time. Says he’s more than happy to keep his clientele satisfied.

By way of guys in Hawkins though, he thinks Tommy H. _might_ wanna fuck him. Carol definitely does. When the Indiana autumn is kind enough she always wears a push up bra and a low cut blouse. Pushes her tits together like she’s hoping he’ll want to get his face lost between them.

If they weren’t such obvious shit talkers and he wasn’t so much of a coward he might properly consider letting Tommy fuck him while he buries his face in Carol’s pussy. Make her squirt and clamp her pale, soft thighs around his face while Tommy rips the condom off and slickly jerks off against him, asks Billy if he can slip it in raw and come inside, _please_.

He’s not risking it with them, though. Can’t go to jail for righteously burying them in the woods when they tell graffiti that _Billy Hargrove has a pussy _across the windshield of Mom’s Camaro.

So he’ll stick with the local selection of desperate straight girls for now.

Whenever a group of them giggle and wave to him from across the cafeteria, he always winks back, then snorts and turns to Tommy H., tells him that the _cattle look ready to graze_ and Tommy laughs like it’s the funniest shit he’s ever heard. Like he does with everything Billy does. 

He really is a grade-A ass kisser, a real psychophant. Another reason not to risk fucking him.

And as gay as Billy is, there’s really only _one _guy in Hawkins that’s properly piqued his interest and he blew that fucking chance out of the water. Took its fucking head off in one shot. Fucking gave it a black eye and a bloody nose and smashed a plate over its head. Overkill at its finest. 

Steve Harrington doesn't even look at him now.

He’s partially got what he wanted, though. The only way to get people off his ass was to steal the number one spot. Capture the flag. From what Tommy’s told him, Harrington fucking ran every school he’s attended in Hawkins since like, _kindergarten. _Now Billy’s got that number one spot. 

It was too easy after he got dumped by that prude Nancy Wheeler. Nancy Wheeler, with her big watery eyes and pink lips, little tits and littler ass, did all the hard work for Billy. He didn’t have to fight for jack shit.

And Billy doesn’t get how Harrington got _so_ fucked up over her. She’s an honor student, slightly reformed _nerd_. He can’t believe she fucking dumped _Harrington_ for that sullen beanpole Byers whose little brother went missing in the woods, came back from the _dead_; the same weirdo who works for the yearbook and probably jerks off to Morrissey’s voice and who took perv shots of _Wheeler_ in her bra and panties a year ago. 

But that fucked up dynamic isn’t Billy’s problem.

Not that he doesn’t kinda feel _bad_ for Harrington though, being so pretty and kind of dumb and giving everything up for a stupid girl dumped him for some stringy weirdo, _then_ getting his ass kicked for ruining Billy’s date night after smuggling Maxine and her friends out to the fucking _woods_ \- oh how the mighty _fall_ \- but in all fairness, Harrington’s throne was kind of Billy’s since he rolled into town; there was no need for an actual election.

The only _thing _is that, despite the constant praise, obnoxiously boisterous guys throwing their arms around his neck to get themselves popularity points and rosy-cheeked, swooning girls hanging off his arms, no one _knew _him and he _wasn’t_ going to let anyone in. 

No one here _deserved _to know him. None of these backwoods hicks would know what ‘trans’ meant if it walked right up and kicked them in the groin and he wasn’t about to out himself for the sake of honest acceptance. 

Besides, after graduation, he was fucking _gone_.

In the meantime, he had an image to uphold. He shoved boys into lockers for being too small, for _looking _like girls; labeled the girls who would sell their own mother to get a date with him to the drive-in _bitches _and _cows_; treated Max like _shit _even though it wasn’t really her fault that she could do no wrong in Neil’s eyes while he could _only _fuck up. Pushed away the only guy in the fucking _state_ that’s worth a double look over.

Over the last three years, he let the anger at and fear of Neil needle away at him, push him into a permanent emotional state akin to that of a pot boiling over. Being in that house has turned Billy into someone else, maybe who he would’ve been from the start if him and Mom never left, but in just a handful of years he’s done a total one eighty.

So he copes. Does what he has to to survive. Chain smokes Marlboro Reds and beats every keg stand record, blasts Metallica so loud his car shakes, pops the screen on his window and sneaks out most nights so his stomach can slosh with the burn of whiskey and he can forget for a few hours.

Neil tells him he’s on the fast track to nowhere; like Billy gives a shit.

He has to pretend every day like he doesn’t have a dirty little secret — that he doesn’t pack his briefs with carefully rolled socks because there’s nowhere to get a new packer out in the midwest, that the medical tape and gauze pads he uses to tape his chest back are for anything other than a fictional health thing.

Pretends that he _likes _who he is. 

Billy’s really fucking _tired_ of this charade.

He’s tired of still being called _Katie_ in the privacy of the new house on Cherry Lane. Tired of being shoved into countertops and being lectured about _respect and responsibility _while Max sneaks out of the house most nights to go play fucking Dungeons and Dragons and pick up Slurpees at the Circle K with her little nerd pack. Tired of _angry _and _bitter _and _hurt_.

He wants to go _home_. 

He wants that cramped, sherbet orange apartment with all the cactuses and driftwood lining the living room windows and Mom having a smoke on the sofa while she reads him the latest Cosmo beauty tips, her hair braided down her back. He wants to be called _Billy _every day like it’s actually his name and not some fucking inside _joke_. Wants to taste the salt in the air when the high tide comes in, feel the gritty crunch of sand under his toes.

Wants to go back into that office and come out with his chest wrapped for a _real_ reason.

But he’s stuck with Neil and he’s fucking _alone _and he blew his chances with the prettiest guy he’s _ever _going to dethrone and Max hates him and no one really knows who he _is_. 

Plaintively, under the covers? Everything fucking _sucks_.

✩

It’s been a month since the fight and he’s out at the junkyard, alone. There’s a bonfire at the quarry tonight but he dipped early. Fresh injections always get him a little too amped to be around crowds.

Sucks for him because the junkyard isn’t empty. It’s not Billy and his thoughts and a quiet hum of ‘On With the Show’ — Harrington’s parked at the edge of where the patchy grass and gravel and dirt meet wet undergrowth and cloisters of evergreens. He’s playing some Chicago quietly from his tape deck and is sitting on the hood of his rich boy car with a Coke in hand.

“What’re you doing out here, Harrington?” he asks eventually, tired of the stagnant silence between them.

Harrington almost falls off the hood of his car in shock. Billy snorts.

“_Jesus_ dude, you scared me,” he laughs a little, obviously uncomfortable, “I, uh, I usually hang at the quarry when I can’t sleep but it’s a little busy tonight.” He gestures to the night sky and the mess of rusted scrap metal around them. “So here I am. You?”

Billy grunts, pulls out a smoke. Considers telling Harrington to fuck off but risks the niceties instead. “Don’t wanna go home, don’t wanna catch Carol’s wrath if I throw Tommy over the edge of the quarry for being a dumbass.”

Harrington nods and shrugs, _fair enough_. Like he’s probably considered it himself before.

There’s a few more minutes of stuffy silence between them before Harrington offers him a beer from his trunk and Billy _really_ has to solidify his ‘playing it cool’ routine around the guy. It’s cold out, biting, but when he slides across the slick hood of Harrington’s Beamer and sidles up next to him? It’s summertime and he wants to lean in close, bask in Harrington’s warmth like sunshine.

He’s pushing his luck but he’ll take what he can get. It’s a cheap high to chase.

Harrington smells like expensive Calvin Klein cologne and girly hair products — coconut and honey. Billy’s heart beats a little faster with each whiff. He sips his beer like he’s bored and inconvenienced by Harrington’s voice and general presence, though. Has to keep him off his tracks. I t’s almost _normal_ between them, alone like this; the quiet isn’t uncomfortable and Harrington’s face has healed up for the most part but there’s still a little smudge of yellow under his eye. Billy can’t stop staring at it. 

He goes home around one a.m., feeling sick to his stomach in the best way, promising Harrington before he left that _this _isn’t going to happen again. That yeah, okay, he’s _sorry _about fucking up his face but they’re not _friends_ or anything.

Oh, and don’t _bullshit _him again, otherwise the Byers Incident might be a repeat offense.

Harrington had smiled like he knew it was a lie and waved him off. _Alright alright_. Seemed strangely _okay _with everything.

Because it happens again three days later. And again, and again. 

Sometimes they go to the quarry, sometimes the junkyard offers the solace they need to feel normal. He doesn’t know _why _it keeps happening, but it does, and now he’s kind of Harrington’s _friend_. The guy is malleable, forgives too easily. Give him something to drink and a friendly nudge and you’re his best fucking friend.

They shoot the shit, shotgun beers, share a few smokes — it’s the most _normal _Billy’s felt in a long time. It’s dangerous for him to get close to people, but Harrington’s magnetic, dragging him in and pulling him under. 

And to his surprise, Harrington is such a fucking _dork_. He’s awful voice impressions and botched explanations of geeky movies Max’s nerds clearly force him to watch and so endearingly _dumb_.

Billy, in turn, doesn’t open up much, doesn’t reveal much of anything too personal to Harrington, but he still feels the most understood he’s ever been. Lets himself laugh and roll his eyes. Watches his mouth to the best of his ability. 

Harrington doesn’t push either, always puts his hands up in defense, apologizing whenever he can tell Billy’s clamming up, jaw ticked. 

Fuck, he’s got it _bad_. He’s going _soft_.

One night they’re at the junkyard, both of them too keyed up to skip rocks at the quarry, and Harrington tosses him a crowbar from his trunk, then pulls out that fucking _nail bat _Max almost crushed Billy’s nads with _that_ night. Harrington does this little spin swing before he _smashes_ the rusty side view mirror off an old bus, shattering it across the soggy grass. 

And they just start going ape shit.

It must sound like a car crash being rewound and replayed to anyone driving within a few miles of them, but it feels _good_, the adrenaline licking through his veins. Billy needs this. Neil took a look at the binder peeking out from his muscle tank while he pumped iron in the living room earlier and made some fucking comment on how the weights and the shots and surgeries won’t make him a _real man._

They don’t stop til they’re panting, sweating through their shirts despite the chill. The cut of Neil’s earlier words is only numbed out by the sound of his heart in his ears and Harrington’s laughter when he sees the twenty degree angle Billy’s worked the crowbar into.

“Why do you carry that thing around?” Billy asks breathily, gesturing to the bat with a jerk of his chin, after they’ve had their fill. “I mean it’s crazy enough to have it in the first place, but keeping it in your car? Seriously?”

Harrington sheds the jacket he’s wearing, lets out a huff. He purses his lips together before he speaks and when he does, he doesn’t look at Billy.

“Makes me feel safer out here, I guess.”

Billy scowls a little, like _what_? “What, you find some rabid squirrel out in the woods? Some Holstein with Mad Cow at old McDonald’s?”

Then Harrington tugs his henley over his head and Billy has to look away. There’s a slight patch of hair sprouting in the center of his chest, breaking above his ribs and restarting under his navel— when did _that _happen. He can see the smattering of moles up close too.

“There’s some scary shit that lives in the woods, like you ever see a pissed off badger?” Harrington chuckles, “I mean, it’s worse than that. Some really weird shit. I wouldn’t wanna be out here without something or someone else.”

Billy keeps his gaze focused on his own lap, the sweat running down his spine. “Sounds kinda batshit.”

“Did it _not _feel good to wreck some shit though?”

“I mean, yeah, but my question is: what kinda things King Steve’s seen that he’s coming out here with a fucking bat full of nails for protection?”

Harrington shrugs, “Some crazy stuff, man. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me, then.”

“Only if you let me ask you something, first.”

He doesn’t like the implication there, but, for the sake of feigning normalcy, he takes the bait. 

“Fair’s fair, I guess,” Billy decides, undoing a few more buttons on his own shirt.

He briefly tries to prepare, internally flicks through the mental file he has on the Hawkins High rumor mill, ready to counter whatever bullshit is going around about his current supposed flavor of the week. 

_Did you really slip your dick in Kim Coulson’s ass? _No, but she sucked on my fingers before I put them in. _Do Vicki Carmichael’s tits really taste like cherries? _No, but they do taste like that cheap shit perfume she wears that smells like cotton candy and it doesn’t taste good.

“What’s that stuff for? The bandaids?”

Nothing could’ve prepared him for _that_.

Billy’s eyes narrow. “Hey man, I just asked why you keep a nail bat in your trunk like some fuckin’ slasher movie bitch. You’re asking me some real _personal_ shit_._” 

It’s not as good a save as it could be, but Harrington came running out of left field with that one. What the fuck is he _supposed _to deflect with?

Harrington shoots him a look and leans back on one arm. If he was standing, he’d probably be doing that dumb little hip cock. “Hargrove, I’ve heard you tell _three _different stories about them and _none _of them add up. I got a C in biology but I _know _that’s not what a lung biopic looks like.”

“First off, smart ass,” Billy spits, edging on mocking, “it’s _biopsy_. Second, why do you wanna know so bad, huh? You think you can get me to tell you shit because we _hang out_? Because we’re not fucking _friends_ -”

Harrington huffs and rolls his eyes, drawls, “C’mon man, I’ve told you _all _this stuff about me and I still know jack shit about you. _Throw me a bone_.” His tone is just on the side of whiney and Billy doesn’t know what to do.

Honestly, Harrington’s probably seen how different his chest is, even compared to the guys on the football team they shower with who’ve nearly got racks from the weights and drilling and ten thousand calories a day. Billy’s too meaty in the wrong places despite being flattened and taped back. He hasn’t commented on Billy not taking his briefs off yet either — no one has. His packing skills must be better than he thought or his mere presence in the locker room is doing its fucking job. People must think he’s embarrassed about how big his dick is. Rumors must do the rest.

Billy should break his hand for even _gesturing_ to his chest. Feels hysterical, backed into a corner. He’s fucking scared.

Part of him feels compelled to be honest. No one would believe Harrington even if he _did _tell, and he doesn’t think Harrington would, not now. There isn’t anything to gain. It seems out of character for him to try and get to know Billy and then spread this shit; maybe he was really low brow at one point, but that Harrington’s not the one sitting next to him right now. 

So, looking out at the darkened sea of chipped paint and rusted scrap mental washed out over the junkyard, he wets his lips, takes out his smokes. Can’t bare to see how Steve’s face will change when he spills the truth.  
  
“I have tits,” he says, emotionless, a cigarette on his lip. “So I gotta cover ‘em up.”  
  
They aren’t as big as they could be, starting off everything so early; his mom is pretty busty. It could be a lot worse. Working out helps but there’s still a different weight and shape to them, all bottom heavy and too perky with his nips out. He’s too paranoid to show off without some kind of binding aid. Won’t take the risk and attempt to fool anyone into thinking they’re just nice pecs.

And from the look on Harrington’s face, it’s obvious _he_ thinks Billy means like, he had gastric bypass or something but didn’t lose all the skin. Had heavy weight loss. Maybe had some mystical Californian chest sculpting plastic surgery that would explain how built he is but why he’s always got tape and bandages or _compression _tops on. 

Can’t say he’s surprised though, because it’s not like Indiana, let alone bum-fuck-nowhere Hawkins, is overflowing with people like _him_.  
  
“Serious?”  
  
“Fuckin’ dead, man.”  
  
“Like you have actual,” Steve does a juvenile cupping motion over his chest, “or you were kinda chubby and -”  
  
Something white hot flashes through Billy and he digs his heel into the gravel underfoot, suddenly agitated and burning all over, embarrassed but also terrified, beyond afraid of being pushed off the car hood they’re on when the elevator music in Harrington’s head finally shuts off and kicked the shit out of. 

“Yeah, like _real_ tits, you moron, the kind you wanna stick your dick between. The ones you get hard over when some bitch bends down and you get to see the way they squish together. Boobs, fun bags, ta-ta’s, _breasts_, whatever floats your fuckin’ boat — I _have ‘em_.”

Billy’s shaking hard enough to vibrate the car when he’s done. Harrington just stares at him for a long while. He doesn’t say anything and scowls down at the dirt, musses with his bangs. Billy might just leave; he kind of wants to cry. Might break down like a fucking _child_ in hope he gets to live a few more days.

_You’re not a real boy you’ll never be real boy you’re just a fucked up little girl who tapes her tits back because the world isn’t fair —_

“What does that mean then?” 

It’s so sudden Billy almost drops his cigarette onto his leg. “What?”

“Like, what does that _mean_? You couldn’t,” and Harrington rubs over his mouth with the back of his hand, “I mean, you’re _not _a girl.”

Billy swallows a little hard. Wants to splinter his knuckles on something. His whole body is pulled tight like a wire. “_Yeah_, I’m not.”

“But... maybe you _were. _Like you used to be?”

It’s not quite _on _the mark but it’s a little better than what he would have hoped for. Harrington’s _trying _to get it and Billy’s _trying_ to sooth the acidic anger still bubbling up, knows it’s not rational but he can’t help it — it’s the instinctual reaction at this point, especially if you’re uneducated. The initial assumptions are always _wrong_ and there’s no way to convince someone once they get it in their head that he was born in a girl’s body. 

Tits and pussy equals _girl_ to them no matter how much T he takes and if he gets his breasts cut off and how much his dick grows and how often he has to shave.

He almost _wants _Harrington to shove him off the hood, to take a page out of Neil’s book and put him in his place. 

“I never _was_,” Billy argues hotly, tiptoeing towards hysteric, “like yeah, for awhile I _looked _like one. People thought I _was _one. It says _female _on my birth certificate because I got the shitty end of the deal and was born _wrong_. Do you _get _that, or are you too fucking stupid?”

Harrington doesn’t seem put off by his sudden frustration, by the insult. Really, he still looks a little confused, all wide eyed and in wonder, lips parted just _so_ around what he wants to say next. Looks so _dumb _and _endearing _and like he won’t push Billy over the far ledge onto the green water and sharp rocks below.

Then Harrington sighs, rubs his eyes, crinkles his brow. “Look, I’m _trying_ to get this. I’ve never actually, you know, _met_ someone who was a guy or a girl and became the opposite, or - and I know I’m probably screwing this up so _tell me_ if I am - was born a guy or a girl when they feel like they’re not supposed to.” He _looks _at Billy then, all bathed in the moonlight and goose pimpled from the chill, “But you were always like _this _inside, even when you looked like someone else, so you’re just trying to make the outside match the inside, _right_?”

It’s the kind of description Billy would let a five year old pass with. Maybe even the way he tried to explain it to Mom when he didn’t know _how _to tell her exactly what he felt. When the clothes and the name and what his future looked like was just _wrong_. 

By the grace of fucking _god _it works, like Harrington’s grasped it, but Billy still feels wound up and uncomfortable, skin tight. Even though Harrington’s _got it_ and he’s not freaking out or calling Billy a _faggot_ or going for that nail bat to set things right in the world —

“_Right_?” Harrington asks again. It’s more persistent this time.

“In dumbed down terms, _yes_.”

Harrington still looks really pleased with himself despite the threatening look he’s being shot. Smiles minutely to himself. Billy’s heart gives a little flutter that’s not panic-induced. Billy knows Harrington’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, that much is obvious, but it’s clear now that he’s not _stupid_. At least he kind of gets the basis of it. It doesn’t guarantee him any extra safety or anything either but at least he might get labeled a crossdresser instead of just a butch. 

Still, he proceeds to threaten Harrington that he’s going to run him over and hide his body in the woods if he breathes a word of this to everyone. Grabs his collar, gets in his face so he can smell the aftershave clinging to the shadow of his late night stubble.

Harrington puts his hands up in defense, eyes crossing they’re so close, _fucking swear on your mother’s life_, goes, “It’s no one’s business unless you make it their business.”

Caps it with scout’s honor, an ‘x’ over his heart. Like it’s some childish secret, stealing bubblegum from the checkout line at the grocery store, instead of something that could _actually _end Billy’s life should the information fall in the wrong hands.

Even when he ends up back home, sneaking in through his bedroom window, he doesn’t know what compelled him to actually open up to Harrington. He’s never opened up to _anyone _before, not since Mom or Chris or when he was forced to tell Max and Susan lest they found out themselves without a forewarning. 

They’re hardly friends and he still _kind of_ wants to crawl in Harrington’s lap to find out how he tastes - but possesses at least _that _much self control that he doesn’t out himself as a fag on top of everything else - but he _also _just bared his soul to the guy, so.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing with Harrington, but it feels like there’s a load off his shoulders. Makes him feel less pulled down, less tethered to earth under the force of gravity. And maybe that’s okay. 

✩

Billy met Susan and _Maxine_ \- “Call me Max,” she’d said, eyes bright as she stuck her little freckled hand out - when he’d ended up back at Neil’s doorstep two weeks after the court settlement. He was no longer in the crumbling Ranch Style on Limewood that he’d been brought home to from the hospital fourteen years ago, with its off-white overhang and grey shutters and kumquat bushes Mom had once planted growing bountifully in the backyard.

No. Instead they were in a little cream townhouse a couple of blocks away. Newer but no better looking. Cobblestone steps and a concrete patio instead of the little patch of yellow-green grass and crepe myrtle trees. It wasn’t what he used to call home.

A new sister and a stand-in mom just added to the element of _not_ _home_. The recovery period of being back with Neil lasted approximately eight days. He’s back to being in third grade and terrified just over a week after being packaged and haphazardly tossed onto Neil’s doorstep.

What made it worse was that Neil didn’t yell at _them_. 

Sometimes he raised his voice, but he didn’t _yell_. Neil didn’t have to dodge plates from Susan because she was quiet and complacent and did what she was told — a _good _wife that knew her place in Neil Hargrove’s house. Ironed his shirts and watered the plants and vacuumed every day, prepared dinner, knit sweaters and scrapbooked. Did book clubs and bake sales. Complimented the neighbors’ vegetable gardens and attended block parties with ambrosia salad and was falsely content in what Billy could only assume was a dead end sex life.

Max could do no wrong in Neil’s eyes either, because Billy was the corrupted one. The _fuck up_.

At least Max and Susan called him ‘Billy’ from the get-go. Neil was careful at first because they were never meant to _know_. Out of the house he used the same level of caution. That was a fucking trip — his spiteful transphobic father calling him his _son _and a _boy_, using the proper pronouns because Billy was too masculine to even pass as any degree of female in a stranger’s eyes. 

Susan knew there’d been a certain ruckus at the courthouse during the divorce finalization and custody battle too. She had quietly asked what had happened with downcast eyes one night over a tuna casserole. The explanation over why Neil and Billy and _Hannah_ were there in the first place was simple and didn’t invite a Q & A after, either. It was clearly finite.

“Billy’s mother and I just didn’t see eye to eye when it came to raising our,” and Neil had looked at Billy across the dining room table with a hard glare, “_son_.”

In the garage and the backyard and when Max and Susan were out of earshot, though, Billy was still ‘Katie’ to his dad. Every _Katherine Marie _and _Katie, I swear to god _muttered in his direction felt worse than the gripped wrists and shoves into his bedroom door. 

Billy didn’t know _how _his dad didn’t slip up in front of his new family, even if he had his supposed reasons for his public and private addresses to Billy. The confidential dead name usage was an obvious control tactic, purposefully hateful and spiteful and meant to keep Billy underfoot and in line. He only called him _son _and _Billy_ in front of an audience to keep his hopes up. He didn’t actually _mean _it.

It made it that much harder, knowing Neil would always see Billy as his daughter, despite trying to mislead everyone else into thinking he was always his _son_. Despite that most everyone saw Billy _as _his son. 

Billy picked up smoking shortly after moving in with Neil. 

If Mom found out he picked up her habit she’d be plucking the smokes from his pocket with her slim, ring clad fingers and lighting up while telling him tobacco was a lifelong commitment to a drawn out, slow death. 

Neil got him an ashtray for his fifteenth birthday. Probably hoped it would get his lungs to catch fire up faster.

Every pack he burnt through made him miss Mom more. It hurt every single day, was a numbed out kind of pain, like arthritis. The sting of an old injury even after a corrective procedure. Susan was there but she wasn’t his _mom_.

Susan felt more like a roommate than anything at first — obligatorily nice. She found out Billy’s truth before too long, walking in with fresh sheets without knocking while he was getting dressed, but still kept up her candy coated niceties. Billy truly couldn’t tell what about Susan was honest when it came to him or Neil. 

Years later and Billy still can’t tell. She doesn’t voice her opinions, at least not in front of Neil. Both didn’t and doesn’t help him take his shots or get him ice for his ribs when he’s had to keep his binder on for longer than necessary. Didn’t and doesn’t kiss away the crinkle between his brows when he’s feeling antsy in his own skin and reassure him of his place in the world.

They’d awkwardly hugged when they met; that was the climax of their intimate relationship. 

It’s still like that now. She doesn’t interfere with Neil’s verbal or physical punishments but she’ll secretly slip him dinner when Neil proclaims he doesn’t deserve to eat with them that night or discretely pass him a few crumpled ones when Neil’s scrimped his babysitting allowance. The most she’s given him by way of comfort has been some sympathetic hand squeezes when his eyes are puffy and red with freshly wiped tears.

It’s not _enough_. Especially because Neil doesn’t touch her or Max. He doesn’t know if Susan’s too afraid to interfere or if she’s not as concerned because Billy’s not her blood.

The one thing Billy will give Susan is that she didn’t tell Max when she’d first found out. When she’d gotten a good eyeful of Billy’s pale B-cups and puffy, dark nipples and the lack of bulge in his briefs, she didn’t run to Max and tell her a _tranny _was living in the house.

Max had found out on her own in a way that still churns Billy’s stomach when he thinks about it. 

Neil had let the first hint slip, when a few venomous accusations of ‘Katie’ had slipped through. It probably made her think Billy had a twin sister who died that they just didn’t talk about anymore and he’d come to live with Neil in her place or that ‘Katie’ was some nasty nickname to get him to stop _acting like such a goddamn faggot_. 

It was obvious that Max had never seen Neil act so awful in her presence before Billy re-entered the picture, too, but she still never asked him if he was okay. Or who Katie was.

_What’s all this Katie stuff about_? Nothing. She didn’t see it as _much _as Susan did, but she still didn’t do anything. She must’ve thought he deserved it, based on all the shit that was insinuated about Billy’s character before moving in.

When she found out though, it was scarier than Neil knowing. Because he at least _knew _his dad would kill any talk about Billy being ‘different’ outside of the house. Handpicked his words at the grocery store and at Sunday service and in front of the neighbors. Meanwhile Max could’ve spread a rumor that would catch like wildfire and the whole town would be up in flames — he didn’t _know _what she was capable of.

He’d been on T for almost a year when Max found out. The blockers had mostly stopped a lot of the telltale signs of _girl_ puberty, but sporadically he’d get a period, some horrid PMS symptoms. It was a regular cycle, like he could time it perfectly, but only happened once every three months. Maybe that was lucky.

One of the older guys in his group back in the Bay Area was still getting them semi-regularly eight months in while another stopped right when he started his shots. Their group leader Tim even shared getting one out of the blue a few years after starting hormone treatment.

But life was a cruel bitch and Billy had woken up at some ungodly hour uncomfortably achy and damp and gone to the bathroom to splash himself with cold water only to find the front of his briefs were freshly dyed crimson. 

He was _alone _too, he couldn’t call Mom to help him, to calm him down, so the only thing he could do was to quickly try and eradicate the evidence of his dirty secret and hope for a few hours of sleep. For a little time to forget and have peace of mind.

The panicked bustling about in the bathroom had woken up Max instead and she’d come in to ask if he was okay, only to see him standing pants-less, his underwear soaking in the sink. The thin cotton shirt he was wearing didn’t hide anything and Max just stood there in the doorway with her bright eyes tracking between his chest and bare bottom half and the pink water filling up the sink.

And Billy had told her to get out in the calmest voice he could muster, voice shaking in horror, but Max didn’t _leave_.

“Get the hell _out_, Max,” he grit out, dangerously low and boring holes into her, and eventually she’d snapped out of it and gone back to bed without another word.

The next day, he’d gotten a twenty minute lecture from Neil about how _wrong _it was to confuse Max like that. Trying to pick up the pieces once Neil finally left him alone, working his bottom lip into a chewed up mess so no one could hear him sniffle - despite the fact they’d definitely heard his fit hit the closet door - and Max had come in with the peace offering of a handful of Hershey’s kisses, had told him she was sorry.

“I was scared,” she murmured. She wasn’t too young to not know _what _was going on but hadn’t experienced it herself first hand yet. “I thought that didn’t happen to boys and I thought you were sick so I told Mom.”

“Well it usually _doesn’t_ happen to boys,” Billy had told her, eyes downcast as he carefully unfurled the little chocolate from its red foil, “but sometimes it happens to _me_.”

And that was the only explanation she’d had for the longest time, until Susan had tried to talk Neil into letting her know the full truth, keep her _educated_, even though that was obviously the last thing Neil wanted in his home — smart, defiant women. Along with the possibility that people would find out Billy had been born _different _and was currently a physical work in progress being funded by Neil’s wallet.

It was probably one of the most invasive and uncomfortable conversations of Billy’s life, too, something he didn’t even want to do but was goaded and essentially forced into doing, but Max’s sworn silence hadn’t been an issue until just before they’d moved to Hawkins three years later.

The only benefit the whole mess of the situation _did_ bring was when Max, twelve and a half years old, had come into Billy’s room one afternoon when Susan was at the grocery store, tears in her eyes and her bottom lip pouted as far as it would go, asking to be driven to the nearest drugstore.

At first he’d snapped at her to walk - “_Jesus_, you’ve got legs, Max, it’s just up the road.” - but then he’d quickly realized _why _she was so distraught and _why _she needed the ride and had rubbed his temples and sighed, grabbed his keys for the freshly gifted Camaro from Mom and had immediately taken her to the CVS. Trailed behind her to the aisle with the _feminine products _and told her not to worry about tampons yet, then thrust a pack of pads into her hands.

He bought her a box of Milk Duds, too, in an attempt to try and make her feel a little better.

When Susan had come back from the grocery store to find Max on the sofa watching Scrappy Doo squeak his way through an attempted punchline, a hot pack on her stomach, she had quietly thanked him for his help. 

And Neil, thankfully, hadn’t said anything at all. Billy still gladly takes his silence over any kind of attempted praise. 

The whole ordeal doesn’t negate or undo what has them out in the midwest now, but in hindsight, it really wasn’t _completely_ her fault, either. He’s trying to see it that way, because that’s the truth of it, even though he refuses to shoulder any blame when she confronts him about it. They had blame to split there, and she wasn’t truly a _snitch _or anything before that, not on _purpose_ at least, but he’s still working on getting there.

And now, the light’s still on in Max’s room when he comes sneaking in through his bedroom window, still dizzy with disbelief over selling his ass down the river for a small town pretty boy that keeps a nail bat in his trunk. 

He has to take his shot in the morning. 

She put saltines and an Alka Seltzer on his nightstand — for the nausea.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy continues his cycle of fucking up with Harrington only to scramble for a fitting apology and win himself back into his good graces. Valentine's Day also brings a newfound opportunity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this is.... quite late? 
> 
> tbh i had the whole chapter written out a few months ago but it wasn't working at all for me, so i started over from scratch, got stuck again, and put it on the back burner.
> 
> please note i am still working through quite a few more pieces for harringrove for australia and as well as some old art for clients so personal projects are not on at the top of my list of priorities rn; but i've been unable to focus on much of anything the last week and a half despite how much i have to do, so on a whim i moved back to some fics i hadn't opened in awhile just to give myself a little reprieve and by sheer dumb luck was able to fix all the stuff i'd fucked up from before within a few hours.
> 
> i also forgot to say before and i didn’t put it in the summary but i hope this very clearly comes across as a “what i wanted to happen after s2 that never happened and rewriting s3” fic because i never did one after s2 like everyone else did but it is My Time Now... also with trans billy simply because i can. 
> 
> well, chapter three has already been started; i hope this curbs the wait. thank you for all your patience!
> 
> and some small warnings for this chapter:
> 
> \- mention of menstruation  
\- minor insinuation of death  
\- brief use of transphobic slurs

Billy starts seeing Harrington everywhere.

He doesn’t know if this is just a random series of coincidences or if it’s intentional, a Ghost of Christmas Past type ordeal and Harrington’s here to lead him down the righteous path.

When he picks up Max at the arcade, Harrington’s already parked outside waiting for the rest of the brats. He’s at the Dairy Queen that’s open late on the way out to Sweetser when Billy needs a Coke and some overly salty fries because Susan’s meatloaf surprise for dinner didn’t cut it. On random weekday evenings when Billy is forced to go to the Melvald’s to pick up something Susan forgot, Harrington’s strolling the aisles with a basket filled with instant coffee and too-green bananas and canned ravioli.

Meeting up at the quarry or at the junkyard after dark is different though, even if they never make real plans to do so. It’s a compass pointing due North — an intended, predetermined notion.

Things are going like, _deceptively _well by Billy's standards. So something naturally has to go wrong.

And it does.

Because contrary to popular belief - see: the quieter, slightly less judgmental conscientious voice in his head - Harrington’s fine ass hasn't made him totally exempt from Billy’s bark and bite. It’s never _just because_ — sometimes Harrington is just a dumbass. Says or does some dumb shit that deserves a call out.

Or, well. Really Billy’s focusing too much on trying to find quote-on-quote ‘unforgiving traits’ in Harrington to save himself the heartbreak later, to try and talk himself out of getting attached now, and send Harrington running like he's caught fire. It’s only _kind of _working.

Meaning — not at all.

Because every time they hang out, Billy wants to hop on the guy’s dick a little more. Wants to go to a movie and twine their fingers together between their seats. Definitely _yearns_ to do some real gay shit like bite into his bottom lip like a fresh strawberry and commit the sounds Harrington makes in response to memory.

But pushing him away before he’s climbing into a self dug grave is the smartest thing he can do.

Billy still tries to talk himself out of it.

Harrington’s got a pension for the dramatic, can be a real _queen _sometimes. He can also be a nag and has a highly displaced sense of confidence when he really _shouldn’t_. Billy doesn’t want to add ‘mother hen’ to the list because he’s _definitely_ too mouthy with those kids to be considered motherly in the slightest, _but _he does care more about middle schoolers more than anyone else their age does, which Billy can’t relate to, and it _shows _with all his opinionated background commentary.

It’s just not _enough _though. Doesn’t discourage him in the slightest. Delights him with a prickle of irritation and he wants _more _of it. But not in the way that he actually _wants _to hate Harrington.

Like even when Harrington’s nosey about why there’s a finger shaped bruise poking out past his collar or he’s complaining about some fancy dinner he has to attend on the days his parents are _gracious_ enough to come home for more than twenty four hours at a time, bitching about the kids making him do shit he doesn’t _have _to do, or the cold ham sandwiches the cafeteria serves after pizza day, Billy’s not anymore determined to do what he should be doing.

It only makes him want _more _and that fucking _terrifies_ him.

So he's softened his blows. All eye rolls and shoulder shoves and playful name calling. He could be _real _mean, _should _be as much of a cock as he was when they moved and tenfold that, but he can’t do that to Harrington, to _himself_. The rational voice in the back of his head keeps screaming at him to be more careful, to heed all the warning signs - _caution: danger ahead _\- but Billy keeps running straight through them.

Then on this particular day, this thirty degree, blisteringly cold Tuesday morning when he's still giving his conscience the middle finger by doing what he goddamn pleases, he fucks everything up.

On _accident_. Oh, cruel irony.

It happens before the first bell has rung, in the parking lot, when Harrington catches the bloody split in his lip from an unfortunate altercation with Neil’s ring the night before. An altercation that only started because Billy was a little lippy in the first place, due to something that shouldn’t even be _happening _to him.

Every once in a blue moon since he's started T, the crimson tide pulls to shore. It’s the first one he’s had in like, _close_ to six months, but the doctor in Indianapolis that has taken over for his specialist back home thinks his intake is too high and wants him on some trial period shit which has thoroughly _fucked_ his carefully tuned body chemistry, so.

Billy was in a righteously pissy mood when he got home. Because it hit at school.

In a panicked rush after lunch he’d had to wad up the shitty excuse they call the school toilet paper into a usable wad and walk around with that shit between his legs all day, then layer that with the sensation of someone melon-balling his insides out and pepper in the fact that his nipples fucking _hurt _too because the _one_ _day_ he wears a proper binder out of the house and hides behind a long sleeved shirt, the material chafes them raw, and you’ve got an extra helping of universal _fuck you _on top of the usual bullshit.

Suffice to say, he was _not _in a particularly good headspace.

So when his dad, in one of his hard left _today I’m going to call you by your _real_ name because I’m not in the mood to call you by that _faggot_ name you picked out instead _moods, asked _his daughter_, by name, to clean out the dishwasher because Max was at AV Club until five, he’d made the stupidly ballsy mistake of —

“Okay first off, _Dad_, it’s _Billy_, we’ve been through this a thousand fucking times already, and second of all, Max can do _her _chores when she gets home, because that's _her _job, not mine.”

And after staring at him with a wonderfully stupefied look on his face for a few seconds, beady little eyes wide and mouth slightly agape, Neil had given his reply in the form of a solid, flat-palmed slap, his wedding band catching Billy’s bottom lip just right.

_You make it so hard for me to be patient with you sometimes. _Called him _her _name, again, too. Cherry on the fucking top.

Harrington pulls up next to the Camaro and sidles up next to him on the driver’s side while Billy has his pre-first bell smoke. It’s really too cold to be spending time outside at all - snow still dusting the ground and sparkling in the faint sun - but there’s nowhere to smoke inside that doesn’t invite the risk of detention. Harrington’s warm enough next to him, though. Wishes he could pull him into his lap and use him as a heating pad because the aspirin he downed with some black Folger’s before leaving this morning isn't doing its job.

Harrington’s wrapped up in a red, white and blue windbreaker, has knit gloves on and traded the various Nike and Adidas he cycles through for sturdy winter boots. Looks cozy despite the teeth chattering gusts of wind that intermittently blow through and extinguish Billy’s cigarette.

“Don’t you have a,” and Harrington gives Billy’s layered thermal, flannel and leather jacket combo a once over, “real jacket?”

Like Billy’s from somewhere where winter actually _hits_. As far inland as he was when he moved back in with his dad, the low sixties and morning fog were the biggest enemy once winter it. Up north with Mom, it was misty skies and intermittent drizzling.

Meanwhile Harrington probably has a rainbow collection of goose down-lined parkas and a hand selected arsenal of Alpaca wool accessories. He doesn’t know how accurate his mental image of wealth is but that _feels _right. Midwest rich has to be different from California rich.

“You look like a five year old,” Billys says monotonously.

Not his best work but he’s honestly too cold and uncomfortable to care. Really it just sounds like an observation. He just doesn’t need Harrington nitpicking his wardrobe too; that's another field Neil has covered just fine on his own.

“At least I’m _warm_.”

Amazing, he _sounds_ like a five year old too.

Billy has his cig poking out of his mouth sideways but keeps rolling over the cut, staining it pink with watered down blood. He withdraws swiftly, taps ash out onto the slushy snow.

“Who says I’m not fine and fuckin’ dandy the way I am?”

“Just thought I’d say something because your hands are shaking and,” Harrington pauses, squints, “woah, you get into a fight?”

“Nah, s’nothing.”

_Shit_.

“It doesn’t _look _like nothing, your lip is bleeding.”

“Leave it _alone_, Harrington, I _said_ it was nothing, didn’t I? You deaf?”

Defensive hands come up like they’ll do any deflecting. “Chill out, you’re already walking around with bruises and cuts everywhere and I think if_ you_ were getting into fights all the time we'd actually see just how bad the other guy looks, and so far I haven’t _seen _any other guys — besides me.”

Billy’s growing real irritated real goddamn fast. There’s a chunk of snow melting in his boot, he’s got the cramps from _hell _because his certain parts of body think they need to shed things they really _don’t _because some court-ordered quack Billy’s met once since moving out here thinks his dosages are too _high_, he’s fucking _cold _and now _this_ shit.

“Christ, Harrington, can you fucking _drop it_?” Billy huffs, flicking more ash off his cigarette’s burning cherry. “Why you always gotta push shit? Do you wanna get on my dick that bad? Is that it? Just like all the other bitches that ride my ass about everything? God you’re so obnoxious, so fuckin’ _stupid_ -”

He catches himself too late.

After that first time, Harrington had subtly hinted that he doesn’t take kindly to words like _stupid _and _dumb _being used in his favor. But Billy’s heard Nancy Wheeler cheerfully call him an idiot both recently _and _while they were still dating, a laugh to chase the insult, and Harrington’s never looked bothered - he even laughed along with it - so he doesn’t know if it’s the _truth _or Billy’s just the exception.

But Billy’s done his best so far to clear those words from his category in Harrington’s presence. He gets the whole complicated relationship with certain words thing. Throws some out to others that Neil continually tosses at him like they don’t taste bitter and wrong on his own tongue.

He still does it, though, because pissy Billy doesn’t _think _and Harrington’s pretty, soft face goes slack for a moment, then goes hard, his jaw clenched. Molars grinding to powder.

“Wow, alright.”

Fear immediately bubbles up in Billy’s throat, baking soda and vinegar, _rising rising_. “Harrington, listen_ -_”

But Harrington’s already stepping back, hands digging furiously into his pockets. “Y’know, forget I asked, like _fuck_ _me_ for caring that you keep getting hurt.” He laughs dryly. “And maybe I am _stupid_, Hargrove, but I’m not _too_ _stupid_ to see that there’s no point trying to be friends with you when all you want is someone else you can just be an _asshole_ to.”

He storms off towards the main building, leaving Billy alone with a half burnt cigarette and a soggy sock and an audience. Tommy H. and Carol are standing by Nicole’s green Renault a row over, watching with as much surprise as everyone else still lingering.

Tommy mouths, ‘the fuck?’ at him from over the frosted tops of cars, making a face at the back of Harrington’s head while Carol raises her eyebrows in surprise and says something Billy can’t detect with his ears suddenly filled with cotton fluff.

It was just a matter of time, right? Inevitable that he’d do exactly what he didn't _want _to. Maybe needed to, but had no actual desire to follow through. It feels worse than the cut to his lip, worse than getting shoved into a bookcase. Worse than the twisting pain under his navel.

“Fuck,” Billy whispers thickly to himself, to the chunky, blackened snow underfoot and his cigarette, pink with fresh blood, “_fuck_.”

✩

Harrington ignores him all day. Makes a proper show out of it — ignoring Billy in the halls, sitting with another group in their shared English class when they do peer grading, hiding in the library instead of meeting at their smoke spot between periods. And he fucking sits with _Nancy Wheeler _and her moody boytoy at lunch instead of meeting up with him. Would rather eat a PB&J with the chick who cucked him than share a smoke with the guy who _accidentally_ called him stupid.

And like, kicked the shit out of him a few months ago, but they’re passed that now. As far as Billy knows.That’s still better than what Wheeler did to him, right?

But even in PE, Harrington is stonewalling him — just grunting and elbowing him back. No snarky quips met with snorts of laughter and ball stealing. He’s _good_ at it, too, Billy will give him that. He figured Harrington would break an hour in, heard about him bringing Wheeler a bouquet of roses even after _she_ drunk-dumped him at Tina’s Halloween party, but he’s still holding fast.

Billy admires his resolve, sure, but the whole situation still has his stomach churning. It’s not like he _meant _it. He doesn’t know why Harrington’s so bent out of shape over a fucking word anyway. Sure, there definitely are a few words that can set Billy off just as easily - tranny, he-she, faggot - but he just doesn’t get _why _Harrington’s fuming over being called _stupid_, like it can’t be used outside the context of an insult.

Like something a kindergartner would get pissy about. At least Billy’s justified in why he doesn’t like a few specific words.

And he doesn’t particularly like _apologizing_, either, so the stalemate continues. Not because he doesn’t think apologies aren’t deserved and needed at times but rather because he’s been forced to grovel out undeserved _I’m sorry_’s so many times they’ve lost their meaning when they fall out of his mouth.

Now, apologies are empty and have a connotation of weakness to them.

Harrington’s the last one to enter the locker room. Billy’s rinsing his hair when Harrington storms past him, agitatedly shedding his sweaty gym clothes and taking a shower at the far end of the stalls. He’s giving off such a tense, sour aura that the guys close to him scrub themselves a little faster and get out of his way.

Billy decides it’d be best to not say anything until they’re alone, and takes his time drying off and getting dressed. Even lets himself get roped into some bullshit conversation about Valentines’ Day involving something Tommy’s trying to pull off for Carol. Anything to kill the time until he gets to be alone with Harrington.

Gradually everyone else clears out and it’s just the two of them. Billy’s stomach is a twisting ball of knots when he rounds the corner to Harrington’s locker. Harrington has to have heard his footprints but he doesn’t make any indication of showing he has.

Just stands there, wet hair still dripping rivers down his pale, freckled back as he digs through his locker.

“Harrington,” Billy starts.

Harrington just tugs his jeans up the rest of the way. Doesn’t even offer a look.

“Harrington.” Fuck. “_Steve_.”

Again, nothing. Harrington starts tugging his shirt on. Billy has no choice but to just _bite the bullet. _

“Look… I’m sorry,” he says. It makes his mouth taste like a fresh punch — copper and salt. Only when Harrington just shoots him a brief sideways glance, does he continue. “I don’t - I don’t think you’re stupid,” and Harrington looks at him properly and he’s suddenly so hyperaware of the exposed bandaging, the cut shorts on his hips to contradict every other fully bare teen boy in the locker room, “I was just pissed off, s’all. And I took it out on you.”

“Alright,” Harrington shrugs, “but why’d you say that?”

He doesn’t have a good answer for that. _Because I get mad for no reason and I say stupid shit I don’t mean and I fucking hate myself for it _— it’s the truth, but it’s not a valid excuse. Most people say stupid shit when they’re in a bad headspace; it’s not a free pass to be an asshole. It’s worked in his favor because he doesn’t want, _need _people to get too close to him.

But he wants to keep Harrington close. Closer than Harrington is now, held out at an arm’s length where he can stay safe. It’s still dangerously closer to Billy than anyone else has been in years, and so abruptly, too.

“Because I’m an asshole.”

It’s a watered down truth but it’s better than nothing; Harrington scoffs and shakes his head. Self deprecation is a cheap shot like that.

“I kinda knew that already.”

“Well,” Billy shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest, not defensively, “s’just a reminder then, I guess. But seriously,” he looks down at the cracked concrete, “I am. Y’know. Sorry.”

Harrington nods and grabs his pullover, tugs it on with a practiced sort of grace.

“I,” Harrington presses his lips together, “I _am _dumb, alright? It’s not like I don’t _know_ or I’m in denial about it. I only pass my classes enough to not get held back every year, and now we’re gonna graduate and everyone’s going off to college but I haven’t gotten into _any_ schools. And I was gonna stay behind for,” he pauses but Billy can easily fill in the blank, “but now _that_ plan’s been shot to shit, so.”

The back of Billy’s neck feels hot. There’s no coverup he can hide under while trying to convince Harrington otherwise. He’s not _wrong_; he’s seen the red marks slashed across Harrington’s essays, the jokes and stories from Tommy about all the tutors and test makeups over the years. Academically speaking, at least by way of school board standards, he’s definitely not batting a hundred.

But really, that doesn’t make Harrington stupid, even if it obviously conflicts Harrington’s own standards.

Harrington snorts and adds, “And I always thought like, ‘hey, if anything, I get people, I can read them’, but I obviously can’t. So, I’m just, y’know. I’m _stupid_. I just don’t need other people telling me, too, because it’s bad enough just _knowing_ I am.”

There’s something sad about the way he says that that makes Billy itch under his skin.

“Jesus fuck, will you stop _saying _that,” Billy huffs, before he can really think about what he’s going to say. “Listen: you _are_ a dumbass but you’re not fucking _stupid_, Harrington, Christ. So what if you’re not the fucking best at English or Stats or whatever? You’re not _bad_ on the court. All these bitches? They’re _still_ wet for you, and,” Billy finds himself suddenly closer and he can smell the Irish Spring and cloying, artificial milk and honey, “those little fuckin’ nerds worship you. So fuckin’ what if you can’t like, write Shakespeare or break down quadratics or know anything else about the war of 1812 other than it happened in 1812? Booksmarts aren’t fuckin’ everything.”

Harrington genuinely looks surprised at that. Billy wonders if he’s mirroring the same expression because he’s shocked, too. It all sounds too friendly, even if it _is _how he feels. He just knows better than to show his cards; Harrington really shouldn’t be the exception to that rule.

“Well. That was _weirdly_ nice of you.” Harrington smirks, obviously still taken aback by the aggressively positive onslaught. “You secretly a softie, Hargrove?”

Instead of playing into it, Billy punches him solidly in the arm to win himself some brownie points back. If anything. Harrington just hisses and rubs his bicep but he doesn't look mad at him for it.

This is the first quote-on-quote fight he’s had in years that hasn’t started with a punch and ended in at least one black eye or busted set of knuckles.

That’s progress, he thinks.

✩

Valentine’s Day has never played a spectacular role in Billy’s life, other than being just another day where girls twist their pigtails around their fingers and wait for him to ask them a very special question of their choosing. The only difference is that they dress up a little nicer, fitted tops and open blouses, flimsy skirts and lacy underwear, anything to give him a convincing eyeful, to initiate a little touch.

He plays it up a little more, too — doles out compliments and gifts cheek kisses in replacement of handmade cards and store-bought chocolate boxes. Billy never promises dates on Valentine’s Day; it’s a recipe for raised expectations and eventual disaster. He’s got no intention of showing up to any Valentines’ dinner. It’s an unspoken commitment and he’s not fucking stupid.

Mom though, she was always a romantic despite the list of uncaring, underqualified lovers she’d taken, even before Neil. She’d make heart shaped pancakes every morning on February fourteenth, or cut whatever she had time to make into a heart shape. Paper hearts would hang in the living room and when she’d come home from work, she’d have a glass of red wine, put on ‘Casablanca’ and share a discounted box of Whitman’s or Russel Stover with him, both trying to avoid finding the candied orange sampler.

If it happened to fall on the rare day she’d have off, Billy would wake up to Etta James and Marvin Gaye playing from the stereo and Mom dancing in the kitchen singing along, still in her bathrobe with her hair pinned up, dragging him into a off-beat waltz even as he half-heartedly struggled to get away.

There’s none of that anymore. It’s just another morning walking on eggshells. While burning his throat on black coffee, it’s dinner at a show: Susan gets a small bouquet of roses and a Hallmark card and dreamily tells Dad she got them a reservation for dinner that night; is baking him an apple pie for dessert.

Max rolls her eyes at her peanut butter toast while Billy fights not to mime her; he’ll be caught if he does.

When they pull into the high school’s parking lot, earlier than usual to escape the bullshit façade of cheek kisses and _true love_, Max immediately ducks out and heads to the safe confines of her nerd pack. Of who’s here this early — only Sinclair and the younger Wheeler and Byers. They’re perched curbside, close to where Byers’ Sedan is usually parked, talking animatedly when Max skates up.

Some kid Billy doesn’t recognize, tall and blond and dressed like a total prep, starts heading in her direction, just after. The kid’s determined as he leers behind the group. When Max notices him, she goes tense, comically so, and buries herself between Sinclair and the little Byers.

Billy sees Sinclair glare at the kid long and hard before he begrudgingly walks away. He has to smirk.

Max can probably do more damage than _any_ of those boys combined if the uptight little fuck really wants to mess with her; he’ll only step in if the beanpole doesn’t leave her be.

He’s going to have to lay it on thick today. He doesn’t really have the energy right now but having managed to fix things with Harrington so quickly has put a little pep in his step. He just has to think of an excuse to get out of wasting any of his money on a dinner at Enzo’s with a girl he has no interest in. Can’t even garner the energy to maybe make some cheerleader’s night by giving her the first good head of her life.

Billy puts his shades on and reclines the driver’s seat back a little. Cracks the window and lights up a smoke. He tunes into the only rock station they get signal for out here for a good ten minutes before the parking lot starts to fill up. A few of the cars around him have pink and red slips of paper tucked in their windshield wipers — Valentine’s cards.

When he gets out of the car to finish his smoke, he blinks stupidly at the Camaro’s hood.

Billy’s got _five_ little cards. How the fuck didn’t he notice that?

“Well aren’t you popular,” Harrington jokes as he suddenly sidles up.

He thinks Harrington might be a little disappointed though — there’s nothing in his hands. Probably used to get love letters slipped into his locker and in the driver’s side window and on his tray in the cafeteria. Probably had to bring an extra bag home.

“If one of these is fucking Tina again, I’m gonna lose my shit,” Billy grunts, plucking the pastel toned paper out from under the rubber blade, “she can’t take a goddamn hint. She tried to get me to finger her under the bleachers at the pep rally on Friday.”

Harrington wrinkles his nose. He keeps eyeing the cut on his lip, how it’s scabbed over. What’s been said has been said. He’s smartly not going to make it a problem again.

“You go under the gym bleachers with Tina and you’re gonna catch something.”

“Why, because it’s _her _or because there’s probably a hundred different strains of DNA splattered on the floor there?”

Both of them make a grossed out noise and then they’re laughing.

Harrington’s still laughing when he says, “Shit, that was mean.”

“Well how many dicks has she tried to pogo on since you’ve known her, huh?”

Flushing, Harrington playfully shoves his shoulder. Billy allows himself to be pushed.

“It’s not like that,” Harrington reasons, “not _really_. She wants a boyfriend but she thinks she has to put out just to get one. If she stopped trying so goddamn hard to be like, I dunno, what she _thinks _guys want, I bet someone would actually ask her out.”

Billy wants to feel guilty about his comment but he’s stuck thinking about Tina aggressively stroking his thigh and grabbing his crotch before she crash landed into his lap on one of the drives they went on and Billy almost t-boned an elm, so.

“I think she needs a _vibrator _more than a boyfriend.”

Harrington shrugs with one shoulder like he agrees.

They walk into the school together. Harrington’s talking about some game that was on TV last night but Billy’s too busy being hyper aware of all the looks they’re getting. All he can see is fluttering lashes laden in mascara and pearlescent eyeshadow and bubblegum blush. All he can smell is the cloud of Anais Anais and Sunflower and Malibu Musk crowding the halls.

When they finally worm their way into the senior hallway, Harrington’s got a packet of conversation hearts and a few heart shaped watermelon suckers taped to his locker. There’s a good amount of folded up cards slipped into it, too. Billy raises his brows in genuine surprise. Apparently he’s not as unpopular now as he had previously believed. A pang of jealousy curdles his stomach like sour milk.

Still, anyone who looks at Harrington now and states that he _isn’t _still attractive can personally take it up with Billy. From the knobbiness of his joints, the crook in his nose to the dark circles thumbed down under his eyes, Billy could never find it in himself to _not _fight the temptation that came when Harrington looked off in the other direction. Has to get his fix, his recommended daily amount.

Despite yesterday, he’s practically overdosing on getting to see Harrington so much. What a wonderful way to die that’d be — staring at Harrington’s soft rosy lips and dimpled cheeks and big brown Bambi eyes before his own eyes shut forever.

When Billy arrives upon his own locker, conversation hearts and suckers and little red foils litter the dull grey metal. Inside it’s _filled _with tiny envelopes and early Valentine grams. Several notes pour onto the linoleum as he digs through them for his Algebra 2 book. Harrington gathers the fallen notes up and drops them atop the freshly scrambled pile just before Billy can slam the locker shut in frustration.

This is _ridiculous_. Pickings out here are so pathetically thin.

“Can’t wait to add these to the kindling pile,” he grumbles under his breath, just before Sabrina Bennett passes him with a wink. The smile he manages for her must come off as a grimace. “Jesus, is it always this bad?”

Harrington _snorts_. “For awhile, sure.”

What Harrington’s received since this morning can easily fit in his locker and in his jacket pockets. It must still be a pretty hefty load considering most people seem to have only one or two, if any, and passing conversations he’s caught bits of make it clear that there’s still in-class candy grams to be delivered. Christ alive, he’s going to have a trail of ants following him home, with the amount of sucrose and artificial flavoring he’s going to have on him.

“_Lucky you._”

Harrington doesn’t seem all that impressed. “Listen, when I got as much as you’re getting, I used to have to like, take trips to my car to bring everything home after school. But it’s not that every single girl is suddenly ballsy enough to ask you out or give you shit or even _like _yous; a lot of ‘em will try to give you more stuff so they seem more, I dunno, into you than other girls? But look at the brightside, man — if anything, you’ve got,” Steve plucks a cherry jolly rancher off a crumpled lavender note and wriggles it between two fingers with a grin, “enough candy to last you til Halloween.”

Billy sourly takes a Hershey’s kiss for the road.

Before they separate for class, Steve slips one of the suckers in Billy’s pocket. It’s sticky and heavily scented of fake watermelon. Billy sucks on it angrily in math class, using it as a shitty, temporary replacement of the extra pack of smokes he’s going to need to make it through the day without telling some shy sophomore girl to fuck off or throw the collection of love notes he’s so far aquired into the trash.

The candy grams are officially delivered in third period and Billy ends up with even more folded cards. Inside are Tootsie Rolls, Runts, packs of Nerds. He can feel a cavity coming on just looking at them.

Upon arrival to his shared fourth period with Steve, Billy finds a small hand folded paper box on his desk, tied up with a little note and curled pink ribbon. Harrington eyes it with a smirk, mouths something to him while he takes his seat.

‘What?’ Billy mouths back.

Harrington jerks his head to Brianna Harris, who sits a row up and seat over from Billy. She’s avoiding Billy’s gaze but doing a pisspoor job of it. Is picking at her baby pink sweater with equally pink fingernails with faux nonchalance.

Brianna Harris is the type of girl to think she can fix people, particularly boys like Billy — ones you don’t bring home to mama and that only sneak in when daddy’s not around.

She wants to soften them, whip them into gentlemanly compliance, dress them up and show them off like perfect little Ken dolls. Does it with such pride, like she’s taught a puppy not to piss on the carpet. It gives her an air of righteousness, but not in an admirable way — more like she’s sitting up on her pedestal, turning her nose up at everyone she deems below her.

Honestly, she looks like someone Harrington would be expected to wife up. He never would though; she’d be a nightmare to sit next to at lunch or the movies, let alone be locked in holy matrimony with.

They sit through a half hour lecture on romanticism in literature to set the _holiday_ _mood_ and Billy feels Brianna’s eyes burning holes into the side of his face all through it. He’s only half listening to Mrs. Coulson but the heat of Brianna’s gaze is obnoxiously distracting. Dialed up to ten. But it’s not like he can straight up tell her to knock it off, glare over his shoulder and hope she gets the fucking message.

When the bell rings she’s on him like a fly to hot shit. He feels Harrington watching with an amused smirk in the doorway as Brianna tucks her bottle blonde hair behind her ear and starts babbling about how she doesn’t know if he’ll like what she made, _I mean I don’t think you can ever go wrong with sugar cookies but_ — all artificially flavored shyness.

And Brianna continues rambling, twirling her hair around her finger and kind of wiggling in place, smoothing her skirt out and not making direct eye contact while trying to play coy by looking up at him under her lashes. Starts to make plans for the evening like he’s already _agreed_ to hang with her.

To appease her, maybe to get her to shut up, Billy undoes the ribbon on the little red paper box and takes a bite out of a cookie. The top of it is decorated with a ‘XO’ written with pink buttercream frosting and dipped in red sugar sprinkles. It crumbles in his hand when he takes a bite.

It _is _good, he won’t deny that; is definitely better than that stale peanut butter cookie he nabbed from the Wheelers’ cookie pot.

But it’s _not_ good enough for Billy to further sacrifice his standards more than he already does. Fucking around with straight girls that only want him at his sloppiest and most unforgiving is one thing; fucking around with some stuffy prude that wants to mold him into something presentable isn’t something he’s down with.

He’ll fuck Tina Carmichael over some uppity snob like Brianna any day of the week even if she annoys the living shit out of him. Because she’ll take all the sharp edges and nonchalance in stride; she needs a _bad boy _to make her feel alive.

Billy’s smart, has a reputation to uphold. He has to do this in a way that makes her want him even after the rejection. So he lets Brianna down with a thumb holding her chin, tells her _sorry, sweetheart, I already got plans tonight_ and strings her along with the murmured promise of them getting together some other time right in her ear.

She plays into it easy, which is the funny part. He thought she’d put up a fight, might whine or throw a fit and press him to change his mind like a brat, but by sheer luck she just goes red and giggles when he twirls a strand of her hair around his own finger and tells him that it’s totally okay, _I’ll hold you to that, then_.

Even Harrington can’t believe how smoothly he brushed that off. They follow as Brianna nearly skips down the hallway and Harrington turns to him incredulously when she’s finally out of earshot.

“How the _hell _did you do that?” he asks, eyes wide. “That’s the _easiest _let down I’ve ever seen her take.”

Billy shrugs all cocky. “Just takes a little _charm_, Harrington.”

“Oh believe me, I’ve got _charm_, she’s just _super_ stubborn. And kind of possessive. When I was with Amy? She wrote me notes _every day _mad that I was seeing Amy without _asking her _first. _And_ she asked Tommy out when him and Carol were on a break freshman year and tailed him for a _week _until he took her to go see ‘Blue Lagoon’.”

Billy snorts, “Please, you were probably too nice to her. And Hill’s just a sucker.”

“You literally _smelled _her hair and told her you’d see her later, how the _hell _am I the one being too nice when I told her no? You’re just leading her on,” Harrington sniffs, as if he’s a completely innocent party.

Billy might agree that he’s leading her on because he has zero intention of crawling through Brianna’s bedroom window late at night, of having her bury her hands in his hair as he presses his nose further into her cunt, of taking her to the new Chinese restaurant that opened in Kelso for dinner, holding her hand over the table, but he doesn’t really _care_. He’s got bigger things to worry about than Brianna fucking Harris’ _feelings _over not bringing him home to meet her parents to plan a springtime wedding on their second date.

Harrington’s too fucking soft on people sometimes. Life isn’t _fair_.

As they round the corner down the English hall to the cafeteria for lunch, worming their way past canoodling couples leaned up against lockers and clusters of girls fawning over their current collections of paper valentines and boxes of candy, Vicki, Tina and Carol run _straight_ into them in a less than subtle excuse to say hi to Billy.

_This’ll be good_, he thinks, as Carol physically gets between him and Harrington and shoots Harrington a nasty little look, much like a pissy Pomeranian, when he’s clearly about to ask _what the hell, Carol?_

Vicki presses right up against Billy when she asks if he saw the note she slipped into his locker yet. One hand grazes his hip as her tits flatten against his arm. Her sweater is tight over her chest, a violent red that still leaves very little to the imagination. If he focuses hard enough he can see the lace trim of her bra through the blaring fabric.

Then Tina purses her lips, sticky with something that smells like sour cherry candy, at the attempt to get him riled up and flips her hair while she slips her own card, bright pink with his name emblazoned on the front in swooping silver letters, right into his palm. Laughs like a goddamn hyena when he makes a show of gently tucking it into his jacket pocket next to his Marlboros.

Really, it’s pathetic.

“Well I hope you have a good time with _whoever _you’re going out with tonight, Billy,” Carol says suddenly, voice paper thin as she tries to reel Vicki and Tina back in; call the dogs off.

Billy minutely wonders if she’s just jealous that Tina’s gotten to go on a drive with him and that he’s got a date at Lover’s Lake with Vicki next weekend or if she’s just annoyed and reeling in secondhand embarrassment at this pathetic little display. Might as well drop to their knees and open their mouths right here, right now.

There’s like a _ninety_ percent chance Carol’s going to end up getting hitched to Tommy within a year of them graduating, getting knocked up with their first kid the night of their honeymoon, doomed to spend her foreseeable future bickering with the freckled fuck over the most juvenile shit they already bitch about nonstop. Daydreaming in the shower of a time when she could’ve easily gone behind Tommy’s back to sit on Billy’s dick, as she presses the pulsing showerhead between her legs.

He’s already decided he’s probably _not_ going to play with that kind of a fire, though, so she can get off on the idea of choking on his cock all she fucking wants. Be fucking mad.

“I’ll make _sure_ to let you know how it goes, Carol,” he nearly purrs, grinning at her with false intention.

Her cheeks go pink and she sucks on her teeth for a moment. “I look forward to it,” she muses sarcastically.

Harrington’s rolling his eyes from behind Carol; she must sense it and elbows him in the ribs.

✩

By the end of the day, through luck and willpower alone, Billy doesn’t have Valentine’s Day plans other than taking Max to the movies with her little boyfriend at seven. Susan and Neil have a reservation at six-thirty and Susan’s been baking and getting ready since like, before he and Max got home so they’re left fending for themselves with boxed mac n’ cheese for dinner. Billy wordlessly slices an apple and some carrots for them in some semblance of nutritional value.

Susan knows about Max’s date, had braided her hair before she and Dad left for dinner; Dad thinks Max is just going out with some girl friends. Billy doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen if he finds out she’s meeting up with Sinclair.

Ten minutes after the truck is clear of the driveway, Billy drives Max down to The Hawk where Lucas Sinclair is already standing out front in a pressed button down shirt, a single red rose in hand with a small white box of what’s unmistakably some kind of candy, looking nervous as all hell.

“Oh my god,” she says, embarrassed, into her lap, the plaid gingham dress just short of her freckled knees, “I can’t believe him.”

Billy shrugs, fighting a snarky remark. “He asked you to go out on _Valentine’s Day_, Max, what did you expect?”

“I didn’t think he was going to do _this_.”

“_God_, Max,” Billy sighs, “we both know the kid likes you, you like him, why the shit are you so embarrassed?”

Billy knows exactly why. Because she’s a tomboy, a skater, little to no interest in learning how to tease her hair or douse herself in a sweet, powdery cloud of Baby Soft or keep stashes of Kissing Potion in her back pockets incase she got invited to the _makeout spot_, i.e. a busted handicap stall in the bathroom next to the girl’s locker room on the middle school campus. Boys her age don’t _like _girls like Max.

She’s young; she shouldn’t _care _what boys want. Really she doesn’t owe _anyone_ jack shit. But she’s still going to see the other kids going on their first Friday night movie dates or sharing Cokes at lunch, witness those sloppy makeouts against lockers between periods and feel that sting of jealousy, of wondering _why not me?_

And she’s felt that pang, before. Billy had been witness to the aftermath of a popular boy very rudely letting Max down before winter break when she was in seventh grade; he still hears _How Am I Supposed to Live Without You? _on repeat in the deep recesses of his nightmares.

This is her first real date, Snow Ball be damned. This is the first time a boy has really looked at her and not had a single doubt about how he felt about her. No wonder she’s fucking nervous; she doesn’t want to shatter that illusion and lose out.

Billy loudly claps his hands together. “Alright, listen up,” and Max throws him a wary sideways glance, “Sinclair fucking likes you. You could dump a Coke over his head and he’d still be sending you those puppy-dog eyes. So stop freaking out -”

“Easy for _you_ to say,” Max snarks. “You’re a dick to every girl you go out with and they still come running back to you. If I was that mean to Lucas -”

Billy rolls his eyes, like _Jesus_. “I’m not _telling _you to be a bitch to him, Christ Maxine, _listen _— what I’m _trying_ to say is: stop freaking out, thinking you don’t look good enough or that you’re gonna fuck up. The dweeb likes you just fine, no matter how _annoying _you can be; like he was going to _pummel_ that preppy little shit that’s got a total boner for you if he even tried to _talk_ to you, this morning. You’ve got _nothing_ to worry about, seriously. And if it’s bad enough you wanna dip,” Billy makes one hand into the signal for a phone, “lemme know, alright?”

Max looks at him like he’s grown a second head or something - which is why he doesn’t do the brotherly shit often; it’s not like it comes naturally to him anyway - but after a beat of consideration she nods, twisting one finessed French braid between her fingers.

“Now,” Billy leans over to the passenger side door and opens it for her, “get the fuck out of my car.”

She stumbles out onto the pavement flashing him the middle finger, but she’s not angry. Uncoordinated, maybe, in a collared dress accented with an athletic jacket and the same grimy high tops she wears every day. Sinclair doesn’t seem to care one goddamn bit if the way his jaw drops is any kind of a clue.

Billy waits until they head inside to leave. Just to be safe.

The Sinclairs are picking them up and taking them to get ice cream afterwards, so he’s got some time to kill. If he fucks off elsewhere, maybe he can call them and sweet talk Mrs. Sinclair into dropping her back home before Neil and Susan get back sometime around ten.

With Susan and Neil out, Max at the movies with a hopeful ride home after, he could have the house all to himself for a few hours, but knowing his dad will be back home eventually doesn’t let him enjoy the quiet.

Being surrounded by flocks of attention starved girls all day, all vanilla lip gloss and pleading eyes and a few cases of what _might _be considered as blatant accosting has driven him to the point that he’s itchy with additional restlessness. He’s cleared his hooch stash and no gas stop is going to sell him a bottle of Daniels when everyone’s out around town.

And Neil’s got a bloodhound’s nose when it comes to good hash so there’s nowhere to go that isn’t freezing out where he can enjoy a joint, either.

So, after briefly weighing his options and deciding to do the stupidest thing he can do that isn’t raiding Neil’s beer supply or smoking hash through a toilet roll and a dryer sheet in his bedroom, he drives up to Loch Nora to see if Harrington’s home.

In the brief time they’ve been hanging out - _talking _has a different connotation and _being friends _gives Billy hives - Harrington’s never invited him over, so it takes him a second to pick his house out of the lineup of cookie cutter two stories. Context clues like the Beamer in the driveway tell him the grey house in the center of the cul de sac must be the place.

And luckily, the lights are on inside.

Billy parks a few houses down and gives himself a moment before ringing the doorbell.

It’s risky business coming to Harrington’s house uninvited, especially on Valentine’s Day. He’d rather not get found out and called a _faggot_ tomorrow, even if people see them willingly hanging out both in and out of school all the time now, theories on needing to fight it out first coming to head, only to pass off their companionship as somewhat expected.

But that’s not what Neil would think. Catch him on a bad day and it might have Billy out an eye for a week.

Tonight though, Billy’s thought ahead and took the back roads over here so no one would go looking for his car in the general vicinity of Loch Nora. He’s got a made-up date with a brunette cheerleader named Kelly from Lincoln High, so no one even thinks he’s in Hawkins tonight, either.

Hilariously, _Kelly_ is not fake — she gave him her number at an away game one time. He’s just never called her.

And no one at Hawkins can disprove that she doesn’t exist regardless because _everyone_ wants a piece of him and it would make _sense_ he’d want to tail some non-Hawkins ass once in a while.

When Billy finally grows the balls to saunter up the front steps and ring the doorbell, Harrington’s there in the doorway in some old sweatpants and a fucking _crop top_, a spoon in his mouth and his hair soft and unstyled.

What a fucking _twink_. Billy wants to _ruin_ him. His cock pulses and he briefly squeezes his thighs together.

Harrington plucks the spoon out of his mouth with a wet _pop_. “Hargrove?” he asks, clearly surprised.

“Who else, pretty boy?”

Harrington cocks his hip in the doorway. “What’re you doing here? Wait,” Harrington looks past him, like it’s not freezing outside and it’s _decent _to do this interrogation with Billy standing on the front step in thirty-eight degree weather, “how did you find my _house_?”

“This is the richest neighborhood in Hawkins, right? And your car’s in the driveway.” Billy might be red cheeked but he tells himself it’s because of the cold.

Harrington also looks pink in the cheeks, goes all bashful when he nods.

“You wanna uh, you wanna come in? I’m just hanging out, and you came all the way over here…”

Billy might be holding his breath and he thinks Harrington might be too, which doesn’t make this decision any easier despite how much he _wants _to come inside. He carefully tries for impartial, shrugs and goes, “Yeah, sure,” then proceeds to casually enter the threshold.

The interior of the Harrington mansion definitely reeks of a level of wealth Billy will never know or understand. There’s a high vaulted ceiling and a skylight and the upstairs walkway is partially exposed before it leads down a hidden hallway. The living room and kitchen are an open floor plan and he can see the teal glow of the infamous heated pool through the big glass back doors.

And the furniture just _looks _expensive; the sofa is a big leather thing covered in throw blankets and matching pillows while the coffee table is made of a deep, polished wood that matches all other wooden surfaces. Everything is intentionally coordinated, meant to flow like a spread from a home living magazine — from the color of the picture frames above the fireplace and the woven placemats on the dining room table to the cabinets in the kitchen and the clearly overpriced, odd-ended knick knacks littering the tabletops and counter spaces.

Harrington’s clearly been hanging out in the living room, the only seemingly lived-in area of this quadrant of the house. There’s a pint of Neapolitan ice cream melting on the coffee table and the blankets are a mussed nest on the sofa. ‘Fast Times’ is paused on the TV. Phoebe Cates has a carrot sticking out of her mouth.

“Nice place you got here, Harrington,” Billy muses before throwing himself down onto the nearest armchair.

Harrington just rubs the back of his neck. “Thanks,” he pointedly looks at Billy’s shoes on the shag carpet but says nothing, “uh, you want anything? I’ve got pizza and some beers?”

“What _kind _of pizza?” Billy quirks a brow at him.

Harrington starts towards the kitchen. His sweatpants are sitting low on his hips, little dimples visible above the waistband; Billy wants to bite into them like a summertime peach.

He opens the cardboard box on the counter and regards the contents with an inquisitive look, goes, “There’s two slices of meat lovers left and a full combo. From Antonio’s.”

Has to be better than the arcade pizza leftovers Max brought home the other day — that shit tasted like greasy, overly salted cardboard.

“Just bring ‘em in here, I’m fuckin’ starving.”

Harrington throws him another begrudging look but obeys nonetheless after a minute. He brings napkins and an extra plate as well, balances a six pack on top, probably expects Billy to set his food on the arm of the sofa if he wasn’t given dishes and go through the liquor cabinets if he wasn’t presented with his own booze.

The pizza is still pretty warm. The cheese is buttery and that good kind of greasy where just the tips of your fingers get slippery and the meat actually tastes like _meat_. The bottom layer of breading is thick and doughy while the crust is thinner, crispy.

Unlike what he would expect from Hawkins, it _doesn’t_ taste like total shit.

“Chicago style is pretty popular out here,” Harrington notes as he settles onto the sofa closest to him. He picks a piece of sausage off a combo slice and artfully tosses it into his mouth. “How’s it?”

Billy licks sauce off of his thumb, nods approvingly. “Not half bad.”

Harrington looks pleased with that and reaches for the remnants of his ice cream. He gives the carton a good stir with the spoon from earlier and sucks a drippy dollop into his mouth.

“What’re you doing out here anyway? I thought you had a date.”

“Nah,” there’s no use lying to the guy, “I made it up so the bitches at school would stop trying to ride my dick tonight. Everyone was out of the house anyway so I just wanted to enjoy some fuckin’ peace and quiet but it was boring as shit, so here I am. Kicking back with _you_.”

It sounds a little mean at the end but Harrington doesn’t seem too offended. Just side glances him and nods half convinced. It’d be great if it didn’t feel like Harrington saw through each façade he put up; taking well to being exposed is not his forte. Not something he’s particularly fond of. Maybe he should redact last night’s apology and put them back on equal, rocky footing.

But he doesn’t, and a content, comfortable silence falls between them.

Harrington puts the movie back on and Billy manages to pay half attention to it. Every now and then he feels Harrington’s gaze linger too long and Billy will shoot him a look to see if he’s brave enough to keep staring, but he never is. It’s kind of infuriating whatever the reason Harrington doesn’t have the balls to get caught. Billy invests in working on a few pieces of the combo and draining down a beer so he doesn't think about it and get pissy about it.

Eventually he pays more attention to the movie. Really, pays more attention to Harrington, whose interest obviously piques when Phoebe Cates slow motion climbs out of the pool in her flaming red bikini, soaking wet and glimmering with water. She’s pretty, Billy’s not blind, but she's not really his brand of jerk off material. Harrington seems to be thoroughly enjoying himself though, as he lingers on the final dredges of his soupy ice cream by lavishing the spoon clean, sucking it into his mouth even after the montage.

He swears he sees him adjusts himself, too. The guy _really _needs to get laid again.

Jesus, _Billy _really needs to get laid.

He can’t believe he’s spending his last Valentine’s Day of high school in the house of former number one Hawkins dreamboat Steve Harrington, while said dreamboat sits next to him on his oversized family room sofa eating ice cream out of the container, wearing a fucking Hawkins Swim _crop top _and the lowest sitting sweats Billy’s ever _seen, _adjusting his goddamn dick because some actress in a skimpy bikini flashed her tits for two seconds in a movie.

And _not _getting laid.

If things went his way, he’d be peeling Harrington out of said sweats and adjusting his dick _for _him, but that’s not how things _work_. Billy's a horny guy and has had a lot of unreciprocated sex but he's not _that_ ballsy. Doesn’t think Harrington’s a queer in any way and he's not about to find out like _that_.

That's an indicator that he should maybe be leaving soon — the fact that he just considered propositioning Harrington for a handjob. Even if he’s still in the green in terms of staying out because he _did_ extend his date night lie to Susan and his dad early on just to cover his bases; that’s pretty clear indicator that he's getting too comfortable. And Billy’s learned he should _never _feel safe when he feels comfortable.

It’s still probably - sadly, by some terms - the best Valentine's Day he’s had thus far.

Earlier Neil didn’t have a comeback to make about him supposedly going out with a cheerleader tonight; despite the constant barrage of disparaging remarks that range from Billy just being a _confused dyke_ to a _fake man _to his _faggot son_, he knows Neil’s beyond confused when it comes to his gender identity and sexuality.

He’s seen the collection of Penthouse Billy uses to reinforce his _heterosexuality _but he’s still half convinced Billy’s a lesbian so _sometimes_ that pisses him off, but because Billy also passes so well, if he showed any outward interest in guys, it wouldn’t just be Neil who'd have something to say about that.

Even if he probably prays Billy will find a man to turn him back into _her_.

Fuck that; his stomach twists uncomfortably, not from the pizza. He doesn’t feel obliged to leave anymore.

Instead he kicks his shoes off in a clear semblance of staying even longer. Grabs another Brasso, pops the tab with his thumb and vacates any thought in his mind to steal more glances at Harrington’s lax face, hiding behind the guise of the movie.

✩

It’s after the movie, when Billy has graciously offered a hand at cleaning up the empty beer cans and pizza boxes, that Harrington throws him for a loop.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Harrington’s parked at the kitchen sink, nearly elbow deep in soapy water, working away at what has to be a few day’s worth of dirty dish accumulation. Billy regards him from the island countertop.

“Fire away, Harrington.”

Harrington works his lip for a moment but doesn’t stop scrubbing the frying pan he’s been working at aggressively for a few minutes. The last time he asked questions, Billy found himself relaying a secret he had no intention with sharing with _anyone_, let alone anyone in fucking _Hawkins_.

He still doesn’t know why he didn’t pull the same bullshit he’s been pulling with everyone else. Harrington’s not the kind of person he should be showing his hand too. Not because the guy isn’t mostly harmless, but because it proves something Billy’s not ready to confront. The anticipation makes his throat clench up — makes it hard to breathe, like someone’s got their hand wrapped around it, thumb in his windpipe.

“Do you actually hook up with girls?”

_That _fucks him sideways a little. Billy blinks stupidly.

“Do I, fuckin’, do I _what_?”

“Do you _actually_,” Harrington reinstates, with unnecessary enunciation, “fuck girls?”

Billy stops leaning on the countertop and stands up straight. “Uh, is someone saying I _don’t_?”

“_No_, nothing like that, I just.” Harrington dries his hands on a towel and turns, back to the tiled edge of the sink, some soapy residue dripped onto his sweats, “all these girls talk about hooking up with you and I mean, _I_ used to sleep around, not as much as people think, so I’m just wondering…”

Billy nods in understanding. “Just wondering if I’m _actually _a total dog, or just a figurative one.”

“I mean I wouldn’t put it like that, but yeah, I guess.”

Billy sighs, rolls his neck. It cracks with a satisfying pop, the snap of a twig.

“Are you _also _asking because you wanna know if you’re still the only one in on this?” he asks, gesturing to his chest and raising a single brow.

It doesn’t make him angry, if that’s really why Harrington’s asking. He’s never had anyone besides Mom and Chris from middle school - well, if he doesn’t count everyone that he was in group with over the years - willingly know, and the whole thing with Harrington was just a big ol’ fuck-up slash uncharacteristic whim.

Really, it doesn’t _entitle _him to know anything past the tits thing, i.e. what he already knows at face value, but he knows Harrington’s probably got a whole slew of questions floating around in his head like goldfish tirelessly circling a fishbowl, and he’s just been too wary to ask. It’s not surprising, either, because Harrington clearly hasn’t the semblance of an idea as to what it means to be someone like Billy.

Probably smart of him to not have asked already — Billy’s had really enough investigative lines of questioning to last him a lifetime already. He can appreciate Harrington picking his battles.

But _maybe_ if Harrington gets ballsy enough to ask, and asks _nice_, Billy will grant a few of his wishes as a reward?

At first though, Harrington’s immediately defensive, almost like he’s afraid of being offensive or getting a rightful smack for pressing —

“No! And it wouldn’t matter even if I _wasn’t_,” he says forcefully, hands on his hips, cheeks burning, “I’m just curious, y’know, I -”

So Billy cuts him off with a sigh, abruptly crosses the space between them, so he’s nearly caging Harrington in against the hard ledge of the counter. “Harrington, buddy, seriously? _Chill_.” He claps a tentative hand on Harrington’s shoulder. “I’m not gonna kick your teeth in unless you deserve it, alright?”

It doesn’t do much by way of calming him but he at least nods like he recognizes that. Because Billy _will_, if he has to.

“So, because I know you’ve got a lot of shit going on up here, right now,” Billy taps him on the forehead, making Harrington scrunch his brows, “I’ll cut you a deal, _capisce_?”

Harrington nods again, albeit slowly this time.

“I’ll let you ask me _whatever _you want. One question a day. If I don’t like it, I don’t answer, and you get to try again the next day. Fuck up too many times, and you don’t get to ask me shit at all.”

Harrington makes a face. “Well that’s not fair,” he reasons, borderline whiny.

Even his pout is cute; how infuriating. It should be criminal.

“Hey, I let you ask me whatever shit _you_ want, I answer on _my_ terms. I think that’s pretty fair, pretty boy. So,” Billy out a hand out expectantly, “we gotta deal here?”

Harrington looks at his hand like it’s just slapped his mother’s ass or made an unsolicited grab at his dick. He really should take Billy up on this offer; he never lets people close enough to ask questions. It’s all a bad idea in the grand scheme of things, sure, but Billy’s always felt the pull of a fire. Allowing Harrington to let himself in, if only on his own terms? It’s still a god-given _gift_.

Muttering _fuck it_ to himself, Harrington shakes. Palm lightly calloused, fingers knobby and long, skin warm. Billy lets his fingers drag down Harrington’s palms when he retracts his hand.

“So — you really wanna go with that as your first question?”

**Author's Note:**

> some random Mood jams i listened to a lot while writing this:  
\- unworthy by vancouver sleep clinic  
\- grave digger by matt maeson  
\- bury me face down by grandson  
\- better anyway by lauren sanderson  
\- growing on you by the story so far  
\- overwhelmed by dark rooms
> 
> yell with me on tumblr and twitter!


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